K is for Kibera, Kiambu and 'K'arnivores

Saturday I went back to Kibera. This time for a fundraiser for the African Health Community Programme. One of the ADPers met Carolyn who volunteers at the Community Programme and asked us to join.

The theme was world food so I decided to bring an American cake - white cake with chocolate icing. For the first time ever I made icing from scratch and it came out really well if I don't say so myself. All I could find was a heart shaped cake tin, funny because my colleagues encountered the same issue so everything we brought was in a heart shaped dish. Who would have guessed it? I think the cake went down well because it was all finished by the time we got back from our walk around Kibera.

So AHCP works with kids and women in Kibera. The kids come for reading and homework assistance and the women come to learn about entrepreneurship and Carolyn and the other interns (many from Germany) assist with raising awareness of business and marketing techniques. There were about 10 ladies dressed in traditional clothing who sat in a room at the back of the AHCP making beads and jewelry. Carolyn is currently helping them market their jewelry to foreign tastes. I sat with one of the ladies and she showed me all the steps. I had a great time. Here's how they do it.

1. get a magazine paper preferably with images only on 1 side so you can draw on the other side

2. mark 1 cm from the end of the page and from there form isosceles triangles with a base of 2cm. Continue to mark the entire page.
3. Cut the triangles
4. roll the triangles starting at the wide base, roll tightly until you have the magazine triangle wound up around itself.
5. Glue the tip closed when you get to the end of the triangle
6. Glaze the beads
7. Let hang dry
8. Thread the beads and use other plastic beads in between to make a pretty pattern
9. Sell

I really enjoyed having the old lady teach me how to make the beads. I will never forget the moment where she used her teeth to try to loosen a piece of metal that was stuck to one of the beads. Ouch! She was so kind and so patient with teaching me and was so pleased when I was able to successfully wind the magazine paper - I loved it. I bought a few to help support the center.

ACHP needs to find a sustainable income source and they're hoping these beads will be it - I'm sure Carolyn will do a great job marketing them and I will definitely be going back to get gifts for friends back home. After the world food day and a peruse of the necklaces, we set off for a tour of Kibera. This one was different from the last - more open sewers, more trash, more disease. I'm glad though that more people got to see it. I think it's important to know how these people live. We need to be aware of the reality of it all, even if just by visiting for 1 afternoon.

Sunday I went to Kiambu which is just north of Nairobi. I got to ride in a UN car which made the whole experience of going over pot holes positively pleasant - crazy stuff! I learned that number plates with 28 are US and 29 are UK or something like that and that any car with the a diplomatic plate and a number 1 on the right hand side of the number plate is the ambassador. We went to see waterfalls, caves and picnic. The place is modelled off Paradise Lost - very pretty! I was also happy to spend some time with people who have other jobs here in Kenya working with refugees or doing medical research. It was a really good break from my ususal everyday and I learned a lot! Did you know the USA has 35,000 refugee spots / year or that Australia doesn't accept refugees with HIV aids. We had some really interesting debates about the ethics of this, about medicine in the US and about life in Kenya in general. I really enjoyed it. As we were picnicing Micah, one of our expat friends, was eating a sandwich and a hawk from mid air swoops down and takes the sandwich from her MOUTH! It's talon clipped her lip. Outrageous! I have never heard of such a thing happening!

Monday of this week - April 18th - was one of the best days so far. I spent the day at an NGO conference and talked about ICT for Development. It's was a regional conference comprised of the East and South Africa regions and we talked about how they can use IT to support their business strategy. They asked me to participate and contribute, they extended their invitation to join them for the morning to stay on for the entire day and then today - Wednesday - they invited me to join them at Carnivore's for dinner. I can't believe that from 1 day with these people I feel so happy and fulfilled that I contributed. It makes such a change from my everyday job where I'm working so frequently - especially lately - on my own and without any client input. But that's a whole other discussion. I gave one of the necklaces I bought at AHCP to someone I met tonight at dinner, one of the guys from this conference I went to, to give to his daughter in the UK who has a disability. He was really nice and I know how hard they've been working all week and knew he wouldn't get time to go out to a market and get her anything. I hope she will like it.

Today (April 20th) my intern and I talked about lots - the law of trusts, the Geneva convention, the revolution of Egypt, the Kenyan elections of 2007 and Obama. I love what she said to me. She said that when Kibaki was elected she woke up with a sense of Euphoria - excitement that anything could happen, that anything was possible. She said that must be a small part of how Egyptians feel and that although they must feel even more, she gets it. I really liked that. I suppose the closest thing I have to compare it with is Obama, and even then I am pleased Bush is out and Obama is in power, but I didn't feel euphoric when it happened. I don't think we in developed countries with established governments can really understand how people like my intern felt or how Egyptians feel, but I'm happy to meet people who can share how they felt and how they feel with me. An Egyptian man I met on Monday told me, before I never bothered to vote we always knew Mubarak would win. He had people bused from town to town voting in favour of Mubarak. It could never be fair, but now he will vote and that the streets of Cairo are different. There is a sense of change and happiness amongst the population. He said he's happiest most for his kids and that they won't have to live through what he has lived through. That's amazing to me.

Other random Nairobi memories:

- sushi on a sunday
- coat and hat stands sold in the streets
- business cards
- the frequency of shaking hands
- 'Lightings' a style of hand clapping the director gives or instructs the room to give during process workhops
- Karaoke at Black Diamond on Tuesdays with songs like: "get down", "jambo, habari gani, misuri sana, wageni ... ", "waka waka"
- traffic like i've never experienced before in my life - it would scare me to add up all the time spent waiting in traffic
- fruit and vegetable produce in Kibera looks 100x nicer than the stuff I buy in the foodstore
- worlds biggest avocados each one for 20 cents